Every brand, emerging or established is growth-obsessed but despite putting everything, you’ll always have detractors.
It gets scarier when you realize that 32% of detractors churn after one bad experience. But, all’s not lost when you understand the cause and ways to turn detractors into promoters.
We’ll get there but not without understanding the definition.
What is an NPS detractor?
An NPS detractor is an unsatisfied customer who has awarded you anywhere between 0 to 6 in your NPS surveys. They are more likely to share their bad experiences with other customers which could hurt your brand’s reputation.
Why are detractors bad news for your business?
Detractors simply don’t care about your other customers. And, why would they? What would you have done it in a realistic world?
The answer is obvious!
Here is why you can’t ignore detractors anymore.
1. Hurts startups more
As an early-stage startup, you can’t risk detractors because their bad experience hurts your already limited customer base. When you’re working your sweat off to gain customers, losing existing ones isn’t a great morale booster.
Plus, if you’re yet to find PMF, it can seriously hurt your chances of achieving the latter. It’s a serious setback and signals underlying problems that you are not there yet.
2. High risk of churn
Detractors lose emotional connection with your brand. They are less likely to engage with your brand, forcing you to double your efforts in convincing them. This overtime could result in less product usage and subsequently subscription cancellation.
They could already be searching for alternatives. Just in case, it costs you 5-7x more to acquire a new customer compared to current ones.
3. Bad experience means bad reviews
Detractors don’t hold back when it comes to sharing bad experiences. 46% of customers share negative reviews as compared to 27% of customers who shared good reviews.
This has troubling consequences including but not limited to:
- A single negative review could cost you 30 customers(scary)
- To offset one negative review, you’ll need 40 positive reviews
While negative reviews can signal trust when combined with positive reviews pumping your average ratings, it still won’t be the right strategy to pursue. When you’re just starting.
4. Switch brands
If you’re in an industry where alternatives aren’t hard to come by, NPS detractors will be the first to jump the boat. More so, when the opportunity cost is low. This means more freedom to evaluate your competitors.
Studies show that at least 50% of detractors are highly likely to churn within 90 days or sooner.
This might come as a surprise, but your detractors are closer to becoming your promoters. The only thing separating these two is the experience.
When unhappy customers are happy with the resolution, they’re more likely to take out their phones and post their experiences.
How do I identify NPS detractors?
While it might seem obvious, there are other underutilized ways to find your detractors. Starting with:
1. Find your dissatisfied customers
Run your CSAT surveys, and identify the low scores(1,2) and their open-ended responses. Identify patterns that bring customers together such as needs improvement when translating from Spanish to English.
Next, combine your CSAT with your NPS percentage into four groups:
- High NPS and High CSAT—Brand advocates who are satisfied with product and customer service
- Low NPS and High CSAT—Satisfied customers who love certain features of the product but are not happy with the overall product or service; low risk of churn
- High NPS and Low CSAT—Loyal customers who were satisfied with the product but recent experiences have made them unhappy. They are at high risk of churn but haven’t due to high opportunity costs or lack of good alternatives. It’s critical to address these high-LTV customers
- Low NPS and Low CSAT—Customers who never had a good product experience nor service experience
2. Watch out for social media reviews
What are the odds of disgruntled customers not responding to your feedback surveys?
You know the answer.
Find negative reviews and what they have to say. It isn’t uncommon for disgruntled customers to come together to vent their frustrations.
Use a sentiment analysis tool to identify the negative sentiments. Also, look for positive sentiments with slight negative sentiments.
Here are some relevant tips that might help:
- Identify negative lexicon—identify negative phrases such as bad, pathetic, worst or other negative feelings
- Perform sentiment scoring—Group all the negative sentiments that are ranked -1
- Evaluate context—A few words such it is somewhat good but there are a few minor problems
3. Take a deep look at customer journeys
Understand the movement of customers across different touch points. Here are a couple of tips to help extract vital info from customer journeys:
- Find out what’s common with each of the detractors—will help you identify the severity of the problem
- Identify users who frequently raise tickets, find it difficult to reach out to customer support, and have a poor health score
- Identify common traits of detractors and take steps to prevent the risk of high churn
- Take a look at other Voice of Customer sources such as sales calls, customer success calls, and emails to identify issues that align with detractors
4. Spilt detractors into groups
While combining NPS and CSAT data is one way to find detractors, there is another way to do it. By digging through your analytics data, you will find that not all detractors are the same.
Here’s how each of them differ:
a. Departers
Departers are detractors who have made up their mind to leave. They have been patient enough to give you chances. They no longer find value and find your app subscription to be a waste of expenditure.
For instance, a user who uses an insurance app to pay his premium realizes that the payment gateway is no longer safe due to outages and downtime.
b. Fence-sitters
Fence sitters have had a negative experience but aren’t completely dissatisfied. They have experienced problems in the past but quick resolution has helped them stay.
For example, an insurance app user might have had no problems paying the premium but hasn’t been able to switch to a floater plan.
c. Disgruntled
Disgruntled customers are just one bad experience away from defecting. They have had multiple bad experiences but failed to leave because of cost and ROI.
For example, an insurance app user might be trying to add an OPD rider but requires additional procedures to get it done. While that had been initiated, there has been only one auto-generated response from customer support.
d. Disappointed loyalists
Disappointed loyalists are long-time customers who have recommended your product to others. However, since the standards have gone down, they still haven’t thought of churning. They need special attention so the creamy layer of your customer base stays intact.
6 Ways to turn Detractors into Promoters
1. Reach out within 24-48 hours
Responding to 24-48 hours has been the golden time to woo detractors. Not only does this give you time to set things right but gives one opportunity to change their minds.
Here are a few tips we recommend:
i. Reach out via email or WhatsApp and drop a message
We're sorry for your experience. Please reach out to our support team at [email] and we'll help you solve the problem. In the meantime, here are free credits to continue exploring our product.
ii. Detail the next steps
Whether you get on a call or stick to emails, list the series of steps that you’ll be taking to resolve the problem. It includes talking about the cause, behind-the-scenes process, teams involved, etc. This will allow you to handle objections.
2. Make it easy for customers to complain
While text and phone calls might be prevalent, adding a voice note feature can help make it easier for customers to complain.
This could be one of the reasons why customers skip text open-ended feedback . Add a voice recording feature reduces the feedback effort ensuring detractors are vocal.
3. Be an empathetic listener
No one likes talking to people without empathy which is why 49% of customers want to insist on talking to empathetic customer service agents.
Even using phrases like, I understand that it is frustrating or I’m with you on this can help customers calm down.
Here’s a simple method you could use to empathize with your detractors:
- R: Reflect on what the customer has said
- E: Empathize with their situation
- S: Summarize their concerns to confirm understanding
- P: Propose a solution or next steps
- O: Offer additional assistance if needed
- N: Notify them of any changes or follow-ups
- D: Document the interaction for future reference and improvement
4. Suggest solutions to mitigate the damage
It’s quite possible that you may not have all the answers but if you’re a support person, you can suggest possible solutions to solve the problem.
Instead, understand the problems faced by the customer. Get an accurate description of the problem. Based on your internal documentation, suggest solutions that could solve the problem.
Let’s say you have a detractor complaining about billing problems, you could suggest:
Let me review your account and clarify any charges. If there’s an error, I can correct it immediately. Can you please confirm the specific charges you’re concerned about?
In the case of a payment plan, you could answer:
If you’re having difficulty with the current payment, we can set up a flexible payment plan to ease the burden. Would that help?
5. Connect people with experts
Customer support may not always have the answer, especially if it's an overly technical issue. In such cases, it's better to escalate the issue to subject matter experts.
This signals credibility because customers perceive personnel with expertise as legitimate and an authority in an area.
Just putting forth this statement can be reassuring:
I want to ensure your concerns are addressed properly. I can escalate this issue to a technical engineer who will be able to help you out. Would you like me to do that?
6. Wrap up the product feedback loop
Before closing the product feedback loop, you might want to articulate the following:
- The list of actions undertaken to solve the problem
- An estimated time on when they can see the improvements or problem fixed
- Steps taken ensure that such problems won’t occur again
Once the user responds in a positive manner that would be a win. However, not all detractors can be won over. This could be due to operational inefficiencies or maybe their problems might not be viable for you to solve.
As a final note, convey that solving the problem at hand may not align with your roadmap. Wish them luck and say that they are always welcome to come back. As a token of appreciation, you could either offer a gift card or anything you find good.
Wrapping Up
After strategically following all the above steps, you might realize that not all detractors are going to turn into promoters. And that’s okay, this should be a learning experience and should be a reminder for your future interactions with customers.
In case you need help, book a conversation with our product specialists and we'll be able to help you create personalized recommendations for your product.
More resources on NPS
NPS tracking: What, why, and how (with examples)
Improve NPS: 8 proven ways to improve NPS score
NPS email: A complete guide on NPS survey emails
Optimize NPS question wording: An in-depth guide
NPS question examples: Get better product insights (2024)
What is a good NPS score for SaaS: All you need to know in 2024
